


Against Such Mighty Dreams

by Tarlan



Series: Against Such Mighty Dreams [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Community: mcsheplets, Community: trope_bingo, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 13:31:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/674935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was the Sheppard Family's dirty little secret, that the elder son, John, had no daemon and therefore had no soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Against Such Mighty Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raphe1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raphe1/gifts).



> Written for **mcsheplets** prompt #142 Dirty and **trope_bingo** au: daemons
> 
>  
> 
> **Fifth in a series of gifts for the wonderful raphe1**

John's father had called it their dirty little secret, the fact that as a child John had no daemon. It was unheard of because a daemon was supposed to be the physical manifestation of the soul. To many people, having no daemon meant having no soul. So John had remained apart through most of his childhood, kept away from all the other children and adults lest anyone realize that he was without a daemon. His family had pretended that John was a sickly child, with only one loyal servant retained to watch over him, and who was paid exceedingly well for hiding the family's dirty secret.

Having never known any different, John couldn't understand why he was kept hidden away in his father's mansion often without even the company of his brother, David. At least his father's servant had always turned a blind eye to the other fair-haired, blue-eyed boy who played with him from time to time, professing to having never seen anyone. Sadly, even that boy disappeared one day, not long after John's fourteenth birthday, leaving him so alone.

John's father rarely spoke to him except to air his disappointment, and John spent most of his days cooped up inside, away from prying eyes. Every day he would rise from his bed and stand by the small garret window, gazing out into the blue skies and wishing he could fly away like the eagle that often graced the sky above him.

And so his life went on, locked away like a prince in the tower, and dreaming of freedom.

At the age of eighteen that dirty family secret came out and John was ostracized by everyone, including his father, and he left his family's ancestral home with only the clothes on his back.

That was twenty years ago but the memory still pained him, and as John looked around at the mix of humans and daemons, he felt that familiar stab of loneliness that cut deep inside. He had never known the soul-bonding and companionship of a daemon or had a part of his soul to talk to through the long hours of darkness, except for that childhood friend, though that hardly counted. Even years later, his dreams still mocked him with shadowy glimpses of a soul deep companionship that he would never know in reality.

He moved from town to town, selling himself as a soldier for hire, or a laborer if there was nothing else, and in all these years he had never heard of another like him until this night. John listened in as the group next to him talked of another person without a soul.

"The man may be brilliant, and his inventions may yet change the world, but the man has no soul. No daemon!"

"Truly? I have heard stories from the north of children stolen away, and their daemons ripped from them, but all were left broken and lost. How can this man remain sane?"

"Not the same. This McKay has never known the bond of a daemon, not even as a child."

John licked his lips nervously, tempted to slide into the conversation and ask where he might find this other soulless man but he didn't want to draw too much attention to himself. It was a bad night with the rain lashing down against the windows and drumming on the roof. Not a night to spend huddled for warmth in a doorway or beneath a tree.

"So where's your daemon, stranger?"

He hadn't noticed one of the men turning to him, and John smiled wryly, patting his pocket.

"Sleeping."

The man raised an eyebrow and shrugged before leaning down to scritch behind the long ears of a hare that lay across the man's feet. John drew back into the shadows, quiet and unobtrusive as the rest of the world moved around him. Eventually, he slept, though fitfully, waking up as the first stream of sunlight filtered through a dirty pane of glass to stripe across the table top. He laid down a few more coins in payment for the morning's meal and drink, and drawing his cloak around him, John left the tavern behind him.

It was a small town set close to one of the large estates yet even so, John was surprised at how quickly he located the other soulless man, as if they were drawn to each other.

"No soul! No soul!"

"HEY!" The man yelled as he was pelted with eggs. "Wretched kids!" he grumbled.

The group of children shrieked as they ran away, leaving the man to brush off the worst with distaste deepening the downward turn of his crooked mouth. He glanced up when he sensed John watching him, blue eyes wide and startled in fear before dropping his gaze and shuffling away quickly. John sensed something so familiar about the man, as if they had met before, and he desperately tried to remember where their paths may have crossed. Ignoring the tingling down his spine, John followed McKay at a distance, wanting to see where he was heading before approaching him. He wanted to speak to him but could see from the man's nervousness that McKay might run instead.

Eventually, McKay reached a small house with a workshop out back, and John waited until McKay had gone inside before sauntering up the path to knock on the door. The door opened a fraction, revealing the nervous man. The blue eyes darted back and forth as if trying to assess the danger and failing miserably, but instead of scurrying away as before, McKay puffed himself up.

"Oh. It's you. What do you want?"

The words startled John. "You know me?"

"What?"

"You said, _it's you_ , as if you know me."

"What?" McKay shook his head and glared. "I just saw you in the street."

"Oh."

McKay bristled. "So what do you want?"

"To talk."

McKay looked twitchy now. "About?"

"Your daemon, or lack of-." John shoved out a hand as the door started to slam closed, catching it and forcing it back open a fraction but the man was strong. "Wait! I'm like you."

The weight on the door eased slowly and McKay frowned as he stared at John.

"Like me?"

John stepped back and rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. "Yeah. I kind of... don't have a daemon either."

McKay looked unconvinced. "Really?"

John gave a half-hearted shrug. "Never have."

McKay seemed to draw in a deep breath before letting the door swing open all the way. He turned around and walked further inside, expecting John to follow. Shutting the door behind him, John moved along the well-lit passage towards another room bathed in sunlight. He smiled at the clever use of mirrors to light up the interior of the room, reflecting the sunlight beautifully in geometric patterns through stained-glass windows of orange, yellow, green and blue. McKay was standing by a desk littered with scrolls and other documents. On the other surfaces lay small working models of machines, some so strange John could not even guess at their purpose.

"So you've never had a daemon?" It was more of a statement than a question but John answered anyway.

"No."

"Huh!" McKay pottered around and poured out two heavy mugs of coffee, offering one to John. "My sister has a bush baby. Never stops talking. Used to drive me insane. Big eyes, fluffy tail." He sipped at the coffee. "I always wanted a cat."

John eyed the large black and white cat watching him lazily from a seat cushion on an overstuffed hide couch.

"Oh... that's Newton. Ordinary, non-talking variety." McKay looked embarrassed. "He keeps me company."

"I wanted a great eagle, or a dragon. Something big that could fly." John frowned, unsure why he had made that confession when he had never spoken of that unfulfilled fantasy to anyone other than his long-lost childhood friend. "Do you...? Do you have any idea why...?" John indicated between them, but McKay was staring at him hard as if trying to place his face.

"As a child I... had an imaginary friend who wished for a daemon dragon or an eagle. He lived at the top-."

"At the top of the north tower, in a small garret-."

"With a slanted ceiling and one small window overlooking-."

"Clear blue skies." John frowned, head tilting as he looked back into those familiar eyes and saw the man where there had once stood a young boy. "Meredith?"

McKay swallowed hard. "I prefer Rodney these days... John." Rodney eyed him in awe. "I thought you were imaginary as no one else could see you."

"And I thought my servant was simply turning a blind eye to your presence." John grimaced, realizing the servant had probably thought he was insane.

John reached out and pressed his hand on Rodney's strong shoulder, feeling the muscle and bone beneath his palm and fingers. He felt another jolt go through him, warming him from deep inside, and saw that sensation echoed back at him as Rodney shivered, blue eyes dilating. "Real. Just like then." He narrowed his eyes as a thought occurred to him that he might be dreaming or imagining Rodney. "Are you... here?"

"Here?"

"Yeah. Here... here."

"Are you?" Rodney asked, nervously.

"I think so."

"Not weird at all," Rodney replied sarcastically.

John reached up and brushed his fingertips over Rodney's slightly stubbled cheek and felt that strange sensation like liquid lightning flowing through his body. He felt as if a heavy veil was slowly parting inside his mind. Rodney gasped at the touch, looking dazed for a moment before his eyes widened suddenly in full recognition.

"Oh!"

"What?" John asked, clearing his throat as the word came out rough and heavy with the desire coursing through him.

"You're my daemon... and I'm yours."

"What?"

"It all makes sense. Why we never had... We had each other. It all makes sense now." Leaving John standing alone in confusion, he watched as Rodney started rummaging through stacks of paper and books, sending papers flying, heedless of where things landed. "Aha!" he whirled round, pushing a pile of papers off a desk as he laid down a heavy, old book and flicked through pages yellowed with age. 

When he looked back up at John with eyes bright and excited, John felt that warmth of belonging flood through him again. He moved forward to read the passage Rodney indicated. The script was archaic but in light of what Rodney had just said about them, it made perfect sense. It was easy to forget that humans were also talking animals. He and Rodney were part of a rare group of humans who had another human as a daemon, but rarer still, the soul bond they had formed in childhood had never diminished, leaving them unable to manifest a bond with another daemon.

"Then why couldn't anyone else see you?" John asked.

"Because I wasn't there physically. Only there in your head so only you could touch me." Rodney looked away in embarrassment. "I never stopped thinking of you, even after I had to put aside those childhood fantasies. Sometimes I'd see a shadowy form in my dreams, of a man, and now I know it was you. It was always you."

John nodded because his own dreams had featured a figure cloaked in shadows when he needed it - him - the most, giving him the strength to move through the bad days. Over the long years the dreams had changed from childhood friendship to the press of warm skin on skin but for the first time ever, the shadow fell away and he knew it was Rodney.

Unable to resist the pull of their souls, John reached for Rodney, sighing into a gentle kiss as he felt the rush that so many had tried to describe to him over the years as they pitied him for his lack of a daemon. He understood it all now, and as he pulled back to stare deep into pleasure-filled blue eyes, John knew he had finally found his soul.

END


End file.
